SETI@home: Join a Team

29 March 2000 -

SETI@home is a scientific experiment that harnesses the power
of hundreds of thousands of Internet-connected computers in the
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

If you've got decent horsepower in your computer (say a 132 MHz
604e, 200 MHz 603e, or anything faster), you can get a free screen
saver, join the largest collaborative computing effort on the planet,
and help the Mac earn some bragging rights. At this point, the
PowerPC processor ranks #2 behind Intel, the Mac OS is the highest
rated non-Windows OS, and Macintosh is second only to the
Pentium/Windows platform.

The project is called SETI@home,
and it harnesses millions of computers around the globe analyzing
SETI data.

What Is SETI?

SETI is the Search for ExtraTerrestrial
Intelligence. Based on the assumption that if there is life
out there, they will try to broadcast their presence, SETI has been
looking for signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe for
years.

Since May 1999, personal computer users around the world have
joined the effort, in what SETI@home describes as "earth's largest
super computer." Okay, it's really more of a cluster, but the net
result of over 1.85 million users has crunched over 97 million work
units and invested over 232 millenia of processing time. The recent
average rate of 12.26 TeraFLOPs/sec. goes way beyond anything a
single G4 can do.

What Is SETI@home?

SETI@home is a team effort - and a piece of software. The
SETI@home program can be launched as a program or run as a screen
saver. The first time you launch it, SETI@home prompts you for some
settings and has you create a user account. Once that's established,
it will download the next available work unit and analyze data
whenever you launch SETI@home or the screen save kicks in. (Be sure
to disable any other screen saver when using SETI@home as a screen
saver.)

When each work unit is done, SETI@home connects to the central
server, relays its results, and downloads the next work unit. (If
your results aren't received in a week, your work unit is presumed
lost and passed along to another user. That's why you don't want to
run it on too slow a computer.)

Why Join?

To find ET? To promote the Mac as a powerful computing platform?
To be part of the biggest community of computer users in history?

I'd like to think there is intelligent life out there, and that
it's not too alien for us to communicate with. But I'm not holding my
breath. We could be alone in the universe.

We're part of SETI@home because we think it would be incredible to
find intelligent life out there, but even more to support our friends
at The Mac Observer, an
excellent Mac site and one of the Top 20 teams involved in SETI@home.
So rather than form a Low End Mac team and wallow at the bottom of
the standings, we've thrown ouor support behind Team Mac Observer.
(Some other Mac teams are listed below.)

SETI@home requires a lot of power. The G4/400 I use have at work
takes 6-7 hours to crunch one work unit with graphics turned off
(about 11-12 hours with graphics on). I've just installed a G3/333
card at home, which I'm estimating at about 15 hours per work unit.
(By leaving your computer running when you're not home, you can
really help the effort.)

If you want to crunch work units in a timely fashion, I'd suggest
at the very least a 604-based machine or fast 603e model, and
preferably a fast G3 or G4. But even the older, slower Macs and
clones will plod through the work units, contribute to the effort,
and be part of something huge.

All the information you could want about SETI@home, downloading
the software, joining a team, and checking stats are in the following
links. If you do choose to join the effort, please consider joining
Team Mac
Observer and helping us climb beyond 19th place.

Other Top 100 Mac Teams

Dan Knight has been
using Macs since 1986, sold Macs for several years, supported them
for many more years, and has been publishing Low End Mac since April 7, 1997. You can learn
more about his current computer system in Dan Knight's TiBook.

Recent Mac Musings & articles by Dan Knight

Is Jaguar worth $129, Expo
Coverage, 07.18. There's no doubt that OS X 10.2 offers a lot for
$129, but is it enough to justify the price?

Faster G4s coming some day,
07.22. A look at Apple's track record in releasing faster models
and suggestions for clearing out the current G4 inventory.

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